


watch me steady

by annamatopia



Series: burning ropes and bridges [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Asthma, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-05
Updated: 2014-08-05
Packaged: 2018-02-11 21:44:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2084235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annamatopia/pseuds/annamatopia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the one where steve thinks his panic attacks are asthma attacks for his entire life, and no one thinks to correct him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	watch me steady

Ever since Steve was a kid, he’s had those moments where he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Felt like he was going to die. Because what if this happened? Or that happened? Sometimes it’s random, just his throat squeezing up and tears pooling in the corners of his eyes for no good reason. Maybe he walked up a flight of stairs too fast or something, he thinks, and he just tries to keep breathing. Sometimes it happens after he gets in a fight. Never during--he’s too busy dodging and getting hit to worry about getting hit. But afterwards he’s trembling so badly that he has to sit with his head between his knees and Bucky at his shoulder, touching him gently and whispering that it’s gonna be okay, steve, okay? you and me. we’re gonna be okay.

And then he becomes Captain America and everything changes. He can fight, he can hit without worrying about getting hurt when he’s hit back--if they hit back. Mostly folks are too surprised to have a chance.

Then Bucky.

He makes it back to the base before he breaks down. He gives his report, talks like he’s just fine, like his best friend and lifeline hasn’t just fallen away before his eyes. And isn’t it ironic, he thinks, as he’s curled up in a ball on a cot, that Bucky’s always told him, i’m with you ‘till the end of the line, and he didn’t even make it to the end of that train. That mission. He’s paralyzed, breaths coming in short puffs that don’t make it to his lungs.

It happens three more times. All after excruciating missions, ones where someone got hurt or someone died and he couldn’t save them and he spends hours shaking, alone, because he doesn’t understand why. Why is this still happening to him. The serum should have fixed the breathing problems. He shouldn’t be laid out on the floor choking on invisible worry and empty air.

The plane goes down and he’s the calmest he’s felt in years. Maybe it just feels good knowing there won’t be a painful after. Maybe he’s finally feeling his purpose, what he was made to do. Save the world.

After.

Oh, the after.

The fake bedroom with the fake bed and the fake radio and the fake outside and fake noises and he just can’t take it. He runs outside, knocks a few civilians over, and stands barefoot on hot streets with shiny cars honking and swerving around him. His body just stops, and he stares into space and time until the eyepatch-man-in-charge tells him to stand down, tells him what’s going on.

When he’s done with debriefings and meetings and information sessions (captain rogers you can’t miss this it’s so important) he finds himself in the gym of SHIELD’s New York building. None of the punching bags hold up to his strength for more than two dozen punches, but it’s something. The repetitive movements and blunt, bitter impact of his fists on the leather bags grounds him. Gives him something to focus on. For the first few sessions, he leaves off the protective hand wraps. He deserves every cut and blister he gets. Besides, it heals by the next time he’s down there. But sometime during all of the orientations he attends, someone notices and there’s a roll of hand wrap hanging pointedly off his doorknob next time he returns to his room. So he uses it.

Then everything with New York and Loki happens and literally everything moves so fast that he has no time to panic at all, no time to think about what he’s doing and whether or not everyone’s going to make it. His heart stops when Stark jets through the portal, and his knees lock and breath hitches before he falls back through and somehow, someway, the Hulk catches him and Steve can move his chest again.

The attacks get worse after that.

Hardly three days go by when Steve isn’t curled up somewhere in Stark’s tower, just this short of hyperventilating, with every blanket in sight piled on top of him to hide the shivering. He tells everyone who asks that he’s cold. They seem to accept it--seventy years in ice will do that to you, they say, and no one says anything else about it.

Except--

Sometimes Natasha shoots a contemplative look his way when she thinks he can’t see, and Clint will randomly touch his shoulder or arm with a quiet hey, cap. Bruce makes him this herbal tea that is to die for--seriously, he thinks men have been killed over the piece of heaven that is Bruce’s tea stash--and somehow, whenever Steve is huddled up with some blankets and Bruce’s tea, Thor is close behind with a marathon of movies he wants to catch up on. earth culture lessons, he says, and Steve isn’t fooled at all. But at least they can all pretend they’re just bonding. He can pretend he’s fine.

Until Stark.

Tony-fucking-Stark, who doesn’t know when to shut up about anything and always has exactly the wrong thing to say.

But it’s funny, Steve thinks, because Tony hasn’t once brought up his attacks. In fact, Steve can’t remember a single time when Tony has even been in the room when Steve’s Not Breathing. Which, seeing as they come pretty often, is saying something.

So after the latest four-hour episode, when Steve can finally sit upright and clutch the mug of hot chocolate that someone’s left at his elbow, he’s a little surprised to see Tony fidgeting cross-legged on the chair across from him.

“It’s like your chest is being squeezed out of your body,” he finally says, and Steve notices that he’s fiddling with a screwdriver. His hands are covered in grime and oil and finely shaking, and he’s staring in the vicinity of Steve’s elbow. “You think you’re dying. Like a heart attack. I had to ask JARVIS to check my vitals and he had to print medical reports to prove I wasn’t dying.”

Steve doesn’t know what to say. He’s always thought--the asthma, maybe the serum hadn’t cured it--only it didn’t feel like the heart-stopping asthma attacks, now that he thought about it, because his heart races a mile a minute.

“You don’t have to say anything, I just thought--maybe--” Tony falters, “you’d want to know you weren’t the only one.”

He doesn’t wait for a reply, and he’s all the way across the room and halfway down the stairs to his workshop before Steve can even think of the words to say.

Only, it turns out he doesn’t really need to.

The attacks are different, after.

Tony will randomly show up like he’s been summoned and put on some black and white feature he insists Steve has to see, and when it’s over he’ll announce some project in the workshop and glare meaningfully at Steve.

And if there’s a pile of blankets piled on one end of the couch in Tony’s workshop and an electric kettle on the nearest bench, well, no one’s going to mention it.


End file.
